Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: The Musical tells the story of two drag queens and a transsexual who travel from Sidney, Australia to a casino in the town of Alice. They travel in a colorful bus they named Priscilla. As you might expect, there’s plenty of campy dancing and sexual double entendres. If you’re a fan of disco music, you’ll enjoy the over-the-top routines. This musical is based on a 1990s film that’s still available. If you’re in the mood for light entertainment and some diva singing, check out Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: The Musical if it shows up in your neighborhood. GRADE: B
Track Listings
1. Overture
2. It’s Raining Men
3. Don’t Leave Me This Way
4. Material Girl
5. Go West
6. I Say A Little Prayer
7. I Love the Nightlife
8. True Colors
9. Verdi: Follie!! Delirio Vano e Quest!
10. Color My World
11. I Will Survive
12. A Fine Romance
13. Shake Your Groove Thing
14. Pop Muzik
15. A Fine Romance (Reprise)
16. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
17. Hot Stuff
18. MacArthur Park
19. Always On My Mind/I Say A Little Prayer
20. Like A Prayer
21. We Belong
22. Finale

Mark Binelli’s brilliant, but disturbing, portrait of Detroit explores the city’s history and its future. Binelli grew up in Detroit and his familiarity with the city shows on every page. Here’s a sample of Binelli’s acute analysis:

More often, anti-crime measures in Detroit did not resemble para-military raids so much as containment policies. A certain degree of crime could be ignored as long as the fulcrum of change in Detroit (downtown, the university district, and the handful of other neighborhoods where the city’s elite actually live) remained safe and relatively unaffected. Short of fundamentally changing the underlying conditions producing such high levels of violence and illegal activity in the first place, policing could do ony so much, so the best-case scenario amounted to hoping the criminals stuck to killing one another and kept the collateral damage to a minimum. (p. 223)

Throughout his narrative, Binelli sprinkles in a sample of horrific Detroit crimes: the dismemberment of a barber, the car jacking of white students, the Chief of Police mugged while mowing his lawn. A crack-addict and his girl friend argue about which channel to watch on Valentine’s Day. The crack-head kills his girl-friend, takes her to an abandoned building (90,000 of them in Detroit), and burns the body. The crime is discovered when a 911 call reported a dog running around with the burnt arm in its mouth.
GRADE: A

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Many of my picks for Oscar gold have no chance of winning. I thought Zero Dark Thirty was the best movie, but the torture scenes have made the movie radioactive in the Academy’s mind. That rationale also sinks Jessica Chastain’s hopes for Best Actress. I liked Bradley Cooper’s performance in Silver Linings Playbook, but the demographics of the Academy (old) will give the Best Actor Oscar to Daniel Day-Lewis. Here are my predictions (guesses really) for the Oscar winners. We didn’t get a chance to see Amour or Beasts of the Southern Wild yet. Who do you think will win?
BEST MOVIE: ARGO
BEST ACTOR: Daniel Day-Lewis
BEST ACTRESS: Jennifer Lawrence
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Anne Hathaway
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Tommy Lee Jones
BEST DIRECTOR: Stephen Spielberg

In our never-ending quest to stimulate the U.S. economy, Diane and I just bought a new roof for our house. Diane noticed a discoloration on the ceiling of our dining room. It was a leak. We got an estimate on how much it would cost to fix the leak and then decided to get another estimate on what it would cost to get a new roof. Although the new roof number gave us sticker shock, we decided to invest the money in this house. We plan to be here for another 20 years so putting a new roof on that should last at least 25 years seemed to make sense. We had two roofs on our house so they had to be removed (bumping the cost up) and we went with a high grade of shingle. How much does a new roof cost for a 2400 square foot house? $24,000. Good thing the stock market went over 14,000!

Back in early 1990s, Ray Aldridge published a trilogy of novels that reminded me of Jack Vance’s Demon Princes series. In the first book, The Pharaoh Contract, Aldridge’s hero, Ruiz Aw, signs a contract with the Art League to discover who is poaching on their slaves on the primative planet of Pharaoh. Ruiz Aw is a skilled agent, but even he is almost killed before this book ends. Slavery is common in the galaxy and various groups compete for the profits such a dark business produces. Like many Jack Vance novels, The Pharaoh Contract features bizarre human societies and amoral violence in a decadent Galactic civilization. I can also recommend the other two books in this series: The Emperor of Everything and The Orpheus Machine.

I’ve been reading the Best American Essays series since it started in 1986. This 2012 edition features some excellent essays. My favorite is Marcia Angell’s brilliant “The Crazy State of Psychiatry” which exposes the drug-culture luring in our mental health system. Ten percent of Americans over the age of six are on anti-depressants. And Angell’s analysis shows many psychotropic drugs increase rather than reduce mental problems. Scary stuff! I also enjoyed Geoffrey Bent’s “Edward Hopper and the Geometry of Despair.” I wanted to drop everything and look at some Hopper paintings. Joseph Epstein’s “Duh, Boring” was a fun read. Malcolm Gladwell’s “Creation Myth” about the inventor of the laser printer fascinated me. David Brooks did a fine job selecting these top-notch essays. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Foreword: Of Topics by Robert Atwan

Introduction by David Brooks

BENJAMIN ANASTAS. The Foul Reign of “Self-Reliance”
from The New York Times Magazine

MARCIA ANGELL. The Crazy State of Psychiatry
from The New York Review of Books

MIAH ARNOLD. You Owe Me
from Michigan Quarterly Review

GEOFFREY BENT. Edward Hopper and the Geometry of Despair
from Boulevard

ROBERT BOYERS. A Beauty
from Agni

DUDLEY CLENDINEN. The Good Short Life
from The New York Times Sunday Review

PAUL COLLINS. Vanishing Act
from Lapham’s Quarterly

MARK DOTY. Insatiable
from Granta

MARK EDMUNDSON. Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?
from The Oxford American

JOSEPH EPSTEIN. Duh, Bor-ing
from Commentary

JONATHAN FRANZEN. Farther Away
from The New Yorker

MALCOLM GLADWELL. Creation Myth
from The New Yorker

PETER HESSLER. Dr. Don
from The New Yorker

EWA HRYNIEWICZ-YARBROUGH. Objects of Affection
from Ploughshares

GARRET KEIZER. Getting Schooled
from Harper’s Magazine

DAVID J. LAWLESS. My Father/My Husband
from Prism

ALAN LIGHTMAN. The Accidental Universe
from Harper’s Magazine

SANDRA TSING LOH. The Bitch Is Back
from The Atlantic

KEN MURRAY. How Doctors Die
from Zocalo Public Square

FRANCINE PROSE. Other Women
from Granta

RICHARD SENNETT. Humanism
from The Hedgehog Review

LAUREN SLATER. Killing My Body to Save My Mind
from Elle

JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS. Outlaw
from The New York Times Magazine

WESLEY YANG. Paper Tigers
from New York Magazine

Rick Robinson and a dozen other folks have recommended Agatha H to me. The series is steam-punkish. Agatha H is a “Spark,” a genius who can create amazing technology. But as the series starts, Agatha’s genius has been mysteriously hobbled. A series of unlikely events unshackles her powers and many exciting adventures result. Night Shade Books has published two prose episodes of Agatha H and TOR has published an omnibus edition of the first three graphic novels (there are 11 graphic novels so far). If you’re in the mood for a feisty female Tom Swift adventure, try Agatha H. Plenty of fun! GRADE: B+

Okay, I confess, watching Smash qualifies as a Guilty Pleasure. Smash tells the story of how a potential Broadway play is developed. The play is a musical called Bombshell which presents the life of Marilyn Monroe. The first season focused on the competition of Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty for the starring role of Marilyn. There is plenty of drama in the subplots. Producer Anjelica Huston constantly struggles to find money to fund the show. My favorite character is talented director Jack Davenport who is both brilliant and a womanizer. My least favorite character is the lyricist played by Debra Messing. Whether it’s the character or Messing herself, the constant high-maintenance of her problems becomes annoying. This second season features Jennifer Hudson in a major role. You could make an argument that Smash is Glee for adults. I enjoy much of the music in this series. I’m hoping my support will encourage other music based TV programs. GRADE: B

Patti Abbott generously sent me a copy of Phil’s insightful Exceptional America. What better way to honor Presidents’ Day than by reviewing a book that explores what it means for America to be “special.” Through the “Declaration of Independence” to “The Federalist Papers,” to “Democracy in America,” to “Walden,” and other classic American political texts, Phil guides the reader like Virgil in Dante’s Inferno. Many Americans are cynical of “American Exceptionalism” today because our place in the world seems declining. China seems poised to take over the top spot while America drifts into mediocrity with failing schools, gun-violence, increasing drug dependency, and a dysfunctional health care system. But, as the Republicans and Tea Party know, voters love to hear stories about how we’re better than everyone else so “American Exceptionalism” remains a potent political tool. I highly recommend Exceptional America. GRADE: A